Posted on: Friday, August 16, 2002

Hawai'i fan of the King still 'loves him tender'

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

Lovely Kwock's Makiki home is full of Elvis memorabilia. Kwock met Presley several times on his visits to Hawai'i to film movies and perform in concert. . . . Return to splendor Go ahead, on this, the 25th anniversary of Elvis' death — love him tender. You could sit in front of the TV and watch "True Hollywood Story: The Last Days of Elvis" (5 p.m. today on E!) or "Live a Little, Love a Little" (8 p.m. on Turner Classic Movies). But there are other ways to wax nostalgic in Blue Hawai'i: • A commemorative display, "ELVIS Has Left the Building ... Jan. 8, 1935-Aug. 16., 1977," is on exhibit through Aug. 23 at the Hawai'i State Library, 478 S. King St., on the second floor. The display features Elvis album covers, photos and other memorabilia. Call 586-3520 for information. • "Blue Hawaii, The Show," featuring Jonathon Von Brana singing Presley tunes, is playing in Waikiki; 5 p.m. dinner seating, 5:45 p.m. cocktail seating, 6:15-7:30 p.m. show, nightly except Tuesdays, Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel. For reservations or details: 923-1245. • It's no feast of fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. It's a clambake. The Mauna Kea Beach Hotel on the Big Island will have a "Blue Hawai'i" Clambake tomorrow night and a "Love Me Tender" brunch Sunday. The clambake includes dancing to the Ho'oku "Lonely Street" Band, and the brunch will include Southern favorites to commemorate Elvis' love of good grits. Reservations: (808) 882-5810. • Join the Elvis army. Blue Hawaiians for Elvis Fan Club: P.O. Box 69834, Los Angeles, CA 90069. Elvis Memorial Fan Club of Hawaii: P.O. Box 11295, Honolulu HI, 96828. . . . How Elvis shook up Hawai'i • Nov. 8, 1957: Elvis arrives on his first visit to Hawai'i. Gets off steamship Matsonia, kisses several hula girls. • Nov. 10-11, 1957: Two sold-out concerts at Honolulu Stadium. Elvis parties with female fans after shows at Schofield Barracks and Pearl Harbor. • March 17, 1961: Elvis begins filming "Blue Hawaii" at locations on O'ahu, including Waikiki Beach and the Honolulu Police Department jail. • March 25, 1961: Benefit concert for USS Arizona Memorial Fund at Bloch Arena, Elvis' last concert before a live audience until 1969. • April 7, 1962: Elvis arrives at airport, is mobbed by fans, loses a diamond ring, tie clip and a watch. He stays in Waikiki and in Miloli'i on the Big Island. • April 9-30, 1962: "Girls! Girls! Girls!" begins filming. Elvis rides around O'ahu with assorted starlets. Starlets resent constant presence of Elvis' entourage. • Aug. 7, 1962: "Paradise, Hawaiian Style" begins filming at Hanauma Bay. Elvis & Co. stay in Room 2225 of the Ilikai Hotel. • Aug. 9-11, 1962: Elvis disappears from set; associates blame "stomach cramps." Mood swings, reclusiveness criticized by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. • Nov. 17-18, 1972: Three shows at the Honolulu International Center (now the Blaisdell Center). Hundreds of women line streets to greet the King. • Jan. 14, 1973: About 1 billion TV watchers (including citizens of communist China) see "Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii" via satellite. Elvis flings cape into crowd, causing near hysteria. Cape is caught by a Honolulu Advertiser journalist, Bruce Spinks. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

The diminutive, gray-haired woman gazes at The King with a look of rapt devotion. She's pointing to an album cover — "Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii."

"See that lei on his neck? That's mine," says Lovely Lovelyline Penaroza Kwock. The lei is made of red plastic plumeria. It was Saturday, Jan. 13, 1973. Kwock was working that night. No time to pick up a real one before Elvis' concert, broadcast around the world via satellite from Hawai'i.

She whips out a "TV Guide" from Jan. 13-19, 2001, with Elvis on the cover. There's the lei again.

There's more. A white chiffon scarf Elvis threw to her in 1972 at a concert at the old Honolulu International Center. Three-dollar ticket stubs from a 1961 concert at Bloch Arena. A dried-out tissue that was once soaked with Elvis' sweat. Sand Elvis stepped on. Letters from Elvis that came in a ratio of 365 letters from her for every four of his.

Want to see some of her 85 scrapbooks? Her husband, Donald, will allow her to display only an 8-by-10-inch Elvis family portrait. Well, out in the open, anyway. A bedroom in their Makiki home is dedicated to Elvis.

Her husband understands. After all, he let her name their daughter Alvis.

Lovely Kwock has had this obsession for some time. She's in love with Elvis. Has been since she was 17.

Twenty-five years after his death, she's still all shook up.

Today, she will mourn his death. Again.

"Nobody better call me on the phone. I won't answer," said Kwock, who turned 64 this week.

It's been 47 years since she first heard "Heartbreak Hotel" on the radio in Hilo and wrote the first of more than 7,000 letters to The King.

"I'll stay home and watch his movies and moan, feel sad," she said.

"I'm going to be rockin' and rollin', too. When I'm down, depressed, I play his music. I have a bum knee, but I can still rock 'n' roll."

Suspicious minds might question her adulation. Tom Moffatt understands it.

Moffatt, a veteran show promoter and disc jockey who began playing Elvis tunes when he had a radio show called "Uncle Tom's Cabin," remembers the girl with the lovely name who used to call in to the station every few days to request Elvis songs.

That was 1955. Kwock kept calling, even years later.

He calls Lovely Kwock the No. 1 Elvis fan in Hawai'i.

"There have been Elvis fans who come and go," he said, "But through the years, she's been the most avid."

She's still a member of the Blue Hawaiians for Elvis fan club, now based in Los Angeles. There was a time when she belonged to more than 50 Elvis fan clubs around the world. But the other fans stopped writing her back, so she cut down on her memberships.

Kwock never had a date with The King. Never had much more than a peck on the cheek when she'd be invited to arranged photo opportunities. She has never been to Graceland, where tens of thousands of fans are leaving notes and lighting candles today for the cultural icon who collapsed in his bathroom on Aug. 16, 1977, and died at age 42 from a heart attack brought on by drugs he'd taken.

But Kwock still dreams of what might have been.

She will watch the spectacle of the 25th anniversary of Elvis' death on television. She will collect more magazine articles that uphold him as a crucial symbol of musical integration and an icon as American as Coke and cheeseburgers.

For Kwock, it's something more personal. Thinking about Elvis means remembering the way he smelled (like Aramis cologne), the way she felt when she heard his songs (thrilled), the way he looked standing on the beach with his guitar (manly, and full of promise) and the way he made her feel like dancing.

"I still have Elvis in my heart," she said. "Elvis lives with me."

Reach Tanya Bricking at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.